tue 08/10/2024

tv

Age Before Beauty, BBC One review - mid-life makeover madness

Adam Sweeting

If you were looking for the antidote to Love Island, this might be just the job.

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Hidden, Series Finale, BBC Four review - a whydunnit, not a whodunnit

Adam Sweeting

Some contend that this Snowdonia-set mystery was a Scandi hommage too far, a mere recycler of gloom-shrouded riffs familiar from the likes of The Bridge or The Killing. Well yes, there was that element to it, but if you stuck with it it grew into far more than a mere copycat procedural.

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The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, ITV review - the ludicrous in search of the preposterous

Adam Sweeting

Belatedly picking up from where series 2 of The Bletchley Circle left off in 2014, this comeback version has a go at transporting a couple of the original characters to the Californian West Coast, where they embroil themselves in the hunt for that old chestnut, a serial killer.

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Who Is America?, Channel 4 review - sudden return of Sacha Baron Cohen

Adam Sweeting

Cunningly kept under wraps until the last moment, Sacha Baron Coen’s new show is a timely reminder of his gift for trampling the boundaries of good taste and decorum.

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Unforgotten, Series 3, ITV review - death on the M1

Adam Sweeting

So it’s back to London’s Bishop Street police station for a third series of screenwriter Chris Lang’s cold case saga.

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Keeping Faith, BBC One review - this summer's watercooler drama

Owen Richards

How well do you know the person you love? Are they someone completely different when you’re not around? This is the central question Eve Myles (main picture) has to answer in the BBC’s latest mystery drama.

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Picnic at Hanging Rock, BBC One review - camp girls' school gothic

Jasper Rees

How many people were watching Picnic at Hanging Rock as it took its bow on BBC One? This opening episode happened to be preceded by a rival attraction on ITV.

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Sharp Objects, Sky Atlantic review - Amy Adams battles her demons

Adam Sweeting

Based on the novel by Gillian Flynn (author of Gone Girl) and directed by Jean-Marc Valleé (who helmed last year’s award-winning Big Little Lies), HBO’s Sharp Objects arrives trailing a cloud of great expectations.

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Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars, BBC Two review - blues, booze and dues

Adam Sweeting

There’s undoubtedly a memorable film to be crafted from the life of guitar legend and grand old survivor Eric Clapton – for instance, Melvyn Bragg made a very good South Bank Show about him in 1987 – but the longer this one goes on, the less it has to say. Nor is it obvious why it has been made now.

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Duran Duran: There's Something You Should Know / A Night In, BBC Four, review - chaps on film

Jasper Rees

Forty years on. You could have got attractive odds on Duran Duran still being here when, on a yacht carving the seas off Antigua, a cream-suited Simon Le Bon mimed “Rio” astride an unapologetically phallic bowsprit. “A ripple in a stagnant pool,” sniffed the NME upon first catching them live.

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